Brown Owl needs you

I promise to do my best (if I can find the time)

THE Guides, whose origins lie among child auxiliaries in the Boer War, and who teach unfashionable virtues like loyalty, duty and public-spiritedness, do not sound like the kind of youth club that would hold much appeal for today's media-savvy children and their cynical parents. But they have not just survived in the modern world: they are flourishing. There are 600,000 of them, and a waiting list of 50,000. In some areas, parents register their daughters for membership at birth, a practice usually reserved for the grandest public schools.

Nicole-Louise Hambridge, of Girlguiding UK, says that the movement (which includes the Rainbows, Brownies, Guides and Senior Section) remains popular with children because it has kept up with the times. Guides still collect badges, but, alongside traditional activities like camping and cooking, girls can get them in things like computer skills, circus performing and “diversity”. The group's colonial-style uniforms have been replaced with new, trendier ones from Ally Capellino, a fashion designer, and much of the old imperial stuffiness is gone. “It's a lot less regimented than it used to be,” says Miss Hambridge, pointing out that while it used to be compulsory for Guides to promise to love God and serve queen and country, they can now choose not to if they wish.

It is the adults, not the children, who are deserting. Girlguiding UK reckons it needs another 8,000 leaders, (called Brown Owls by the Brownies) to give places to everybody who wants to join. It blames the pressures of modern life for the shortage. More people are bringing up children single-handedly, or are in families where both parents work. The proportion of women in the workforce has risen from 42.5% in 1971 to 53.4% in 2004. That makes it harder to find time for good deeds. Ironically, that same lack of free time is another reason why the Guides remain popular: frazzled parents like the idea of someone else taking care of their children one night a week.

But in other ways, the Guides and the modern economy are surprisingly compatible. Carol Hardy, an HR consultant who also leads the 8th Maidstone Brownies, points out that looking after a group of girls on a camping trip teaches just the sort of leadership and teamwork skills that employers say they like.